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Overview
This poster was one of the first voluntary recruitment posters to be commissioned by the Army Department at the beginning of the Second World War. It was critical for the government to stimulate enthusiasm for voluntary enlistment, partly in the hope of avoiding conscription. This may be the only Second World War poster to feature a famous identity, Lieutenant-General Sir Bernard Cyril Freyberg (1889-1963). Generally New Zealand's war posters were populated with normal citizens, exhorting their fellows to contribute to the war either physically or financially.
The imagery in this poster relies on the viewer's positive memories of the First World War as an overseas experience (hence the reference to sightseeing at the pyramids). Freyberg and his quote stand in for the government in applying emotional pressure on the viewer.
Very few examples of this poster have survived, and very few are held in public collections. With the introduction of compulsory military service in June 1940 (about the same time as this poster was printed), recruitment posters 'were of course abandoned, and except for a few copies retained for historical purposes no special effort was made to preserve them' (Director of Publicity to C. H. Bateson, 24 April 1941, External Affairs, series 1, 84/12/12, part 1, Archives New Zealand).